


the five people you meet in heaven

by jesimiel



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, It/Its Pronouns For Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives), anyway. by god i love to write people having weird conversations, like. obviously. everyone in this fic is dead except melanie, sort of. its complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28063188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesimiel/pseuds/jesimiel
Summary: sasha's got five lectures before she can rest.
Relationships: Sasha James/Melanie King (implied)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 60





	1. cor ad cor loquitur

**Author's Note:**

> okay YES i read this goddamn mitch albom book in eighth grade and it hasn't left my mind since. i HAD to write an AU of it and i like sasha a lot. whatever. this is FINISHED and i'm uploading a chapter every sunday until its done <3 tumblr is [here](http://jordankennedy.tumblr.com)

sasha james dies in the magnus institute, and opens her eyes in a bar.

there’s a strange dark-haired man leaning over her, squinting at her face. he pokes her cheek with a finger.

“hey, are you dead yet?”

she shrieks in alarm and sits up so fast she almost smacks their foreheads together. 

“p—prentiss, jane—she—the institute—jon, and martin—” she trails off, noticing her surroundings. there’s not a worm to be seen and she’s not in the magnus institute anymore, not in artifact storage—they’re in a room maybe eight meters square, with a wooden bar on one side and glass shards littering the concrete floor. “wait—what’s going on? who are you?”

the man holds up his hands in surrender, leaning back. “i’m—sorry, sorry. forgot you probably wouldn’t recognize me without all the, uh.” he gestures to his face. “y’know. though, i gotta be honest, in the heat of the moment and everything, i _totally_ never noticed how alike we look. you think maybe we were separated at birth, or somethin’? how old are you, again?”

sasha looks at him in confused bewilderment.

the man shrugs, leans fully back to brace himself on his hands, fingernails tapping softly on the floor. he looks like he’s never cared about anything in his life.

“um, coffee date with a monster, busted pub, fire extinguisher—sound familiar?”

sasha’s brain rattles in her skull as she racks her memory—she _does_ know this man, recognizes his face and his speech, but where from? the man raises an eyebrow in the face of her dead-on stare. and then it clicks.

“oh, my god,” breathes sasha. “ _you?_ ”

“there we go,” says timothy hodge. he sits back up, crossing his legs, and snaps his fingers. “took you a second, huh?”

he’s right, sasha thinks—they _do_ look alike. kind of skinny, almost the same color hair, freckles across the bridge of the nose. olive skin and green eyes just a few shades off from each other. (his are a little bluer, hers more hazel. they might actually have _exactly_ the same color hair.) she’s stared at the photo on his missing persons report for long enough that she should've caught that. she just keeps looking at him.

“so,” he says, “how’s things? liking your office job?”

“no,” she replies, almost on reflex, and he grins. 

“yeah, i wouldn’t either—seems like a bit of a drag. i mean, i drew logos for a living, but for one of my first jobs i was a temp for this ad agency, and _wow,_ the desk work will get to you after a while. worked as a freelancer for the rest of my life, after that,” he says. 

this is the oddest conversation sasha has ever had. it beats anything she’d done with michael.

“why are you here?” she asks. timothy rests his elbows on his knees. “i mean, i—i died, right? i’m dead?”

“sure are,” he replies, without missing a beat. “‘s not that bad.”

“...how?”

“dunno. wasn’t watching.”

“so, what, is it just… this? forever?” sasha waves a hand dismissively, indicating the building they seem to be in—the abandoned pub on azalea close. she’s sitting with her own legs crossed beneath the remains of the bar, the same toolbox and the fucking fire extinguisher resting on top of it, with her hands pressed against the concrete floor. she thinks she should probably be getting splinters of glass in her palms, but she isn’t. “or is this _your_ afterlife? stuck in the same place for all of eternity?”

“nope,” timothy says, popping the ‘p’. “neither, actually. we’re just here until i knock some sense into you, i guess. i… didn’t pick the location.” he punctuates the last remark with a tight little smile. 

“knock some sense into me.” it’s flat and unimpressed, though sasha’s more confused than anything. 

“yeah.” he doesn’t elaborate.

“...so, why are you here? why is it _you?_ ”

“i mean, it’s not just me. you get five.”

“five what?”

he shrugs. “five people you gotta talk to before you get your, y’know, eternal rest, or whatever. people who were important to you, or people who represent turning points in your life, stuff like that. i had to do it. eventually, you’re probably gonna be one of someone’s five people.”

a pause. 

“that’s… strange.”

“yeah, tell me about it.”

a long silence.

“hey, what d’you got on you right now?”

the question takes sasha so by surprise that she’s got her hands in her skirt pockets before she registers what he’d said. she withdraws her fists, opening them for him to see the contents. forty-five pence, a scrap of purple yarn, a broken necklace chain, a crumpled receipt from tesco’s, and a piece of hard candy.

“yuck, you like blue raspberry?” timothy wrinkles his nose.

“it’s good,” says sasha indignantly. 

“it’s a fake flavor. blue raspberries don’t really exist,” he argues.

sasha stares him down. “i have refined taste.”

“if you say so.”

“i thought you were supposed to be, y’know, giving me life advice. or… death advice. not making fun of my taste in hard candy.”

timothy shrugs again. “i mean, yeah, but you only die once. i honestly wasn’t expecting to be here, to be one of your five—didn’t think i’d _ever_ get to meet you under at least semi-normal circumstances. thought maybe we could _do_ something semi-normal. have a conversation. if you _wanna_ get right into the metaphysical shit, though, that’s cool with me.”

sasha doesn’t answer, unsure how. they sit in silence again for a long time after that—sasha isn’t actually sure _how_ long it is. neither of them do anything but sort of stare at each other. she tries to reconcile his real appearance with that of the worm-eaten corpse she’d first seen in this building, but she’s having trouble. god, he’s got to be the same age as _her,_ twenty-five at the oldest? too young, too young. too young to sleep with the wrong girl and rot alive for his trouble, too young to choke to death on writhing insects and carbon dioxide. he props his chin up with one hand and taps his fingers on his cheek as he looks at her.

sasha breaks the quiet first. “i’m sorry.”

“what? why?” he actually, genuinely, sounds surprised. 

she hugs herself, nails digging into skin. “i should have—i should have done something. i should have helped you.”

timothy considers that for a moment. “you read my statement, right?”

“yes,” she whispers, staring at the floor. “i have a copy of your missing persons report in my desk drawer. had… had a copy.”

“sweet of you. are you flirting with me?”

she narrows her eyes at him.

“sorry, not the time. it’d be weird anyway, you look like you could be my sister. but if you read that…”

“still.”

“no, not _still._ ” the humor is gone from his voice in an instant. she looks up and he’s pointing at her with one hand, the other clenched at his side, his shoulders suddenly tense. “you read my statement. quit beating yourself up about it, there was nothing you could have done.”

“i don’t care!” it rips itself out of sasha’s throat unbidden, surprising her in its intensity and volume. her own hands curl into fists. “i don’t _care!_ i should have helped—i should have _done_ something!”

“there _wasn’t_ anything!” timothy yells back, and then they’re both on their feet on either end of the little room, shouting at each other as loud as they can, the echo that should be there muffled slightly in the atmosphere of what sasha is quickly forgetting is apparently heaven.

“i shouldn’t have listened to michael!”

“listening to michael is what got you out of there alive!”

“i _killed_ you!”

“i almost killed _you!_ ”

“i was a fucking idiot!”

“i was a dead man walking!”

they yell until they’re both out of breath that they no longer even need, and sasha’s got both hands fisted in her hair as she squints in frustration through fogging glasses. hot tears slip out of her eyes as she shakes her head like she’s trying to clear the water out of it.

“i’m sorry,” she says, swiping under her eyes with the back of her hand and feeling like a child. “i’m so sorry.” 

“you don’t _have_ to be,” timothy says exasperatedly. “do you get that? you don’t _have_ to be sorry, you haven’t done anything _wrong._ ”

“it _feels_ like i did,” she says quietly.

“look, sash,” he says—and doesn’t _that_ nickname make her want to tear her insides out—“you gotta understand. not everyone can be saved.”

“did you?”

he blinks. “what?”

“did you want to be saved?” sasha asks again. timothy suddenly looks uncomfortable.

“this—this is _your_ , y’know, afterlife advice shit. it’s not about me.”

“i don’t _care,_ ” sasha says forcefully. she steps forwards and catches his wrist. “i want to know. what, did you want me to _kill_ you?”

“of course i didn’t,” he snaps.

“did you want me to help you?”

stony silence. he glares at her, rather petulantly. the longer she looks at him, the more she thinks she can see the afterimages, the little shadows of the worms that his skin once crawled with. she blinks, and they disappear.

“ _did_ you?” she squeezes his wrist a bit harder. 

“ _no_ , okay!?” he explodes, yanking his arm back all at once. “i didn’t! i—i know _now_ , that it was—it was awful and twisted and sick, _i_ was sick, but—but then—”

timothy drags a hand up and over the side of his face, twisting it in his hair. it stays stuck up like he’d put his finger in a light socket. 

“i _liked_ it. it hurt—like _hell_ —but i _wanted_ it, i wanted _them_. and—and jane, she—”

“you _spoke_ to her?” sasha can’t help herself. timothy shakes his head, though.

“not—i mean, sort of? it’s—i can’t explain it. we never met, but i—i was _aware_ of her. some kind of freaky worm hive telepathy, or something—i don’t fucking know. she—we only ever—i mean, we never _talked._ ”

he’s pacing, now, in short, restless little circles. sasha watches him, waits for him.

“it—it wasn’t _talking_. i don’t have a word for it,” he continues. “jane—she just…”

he stops pacing, stands there and stares into a space somewhere between him and sasha, hugging himself, framed by the busted wall behind him and broken glass at his feet.

“she told me that—that she loved me,” he says, very quietly. “and i could tell that it was true. it was—love like i’d never known. and she said that—she just—had to finish something, and everything was going to be alright.” 

“and it wasn’t,” sasha says. 

timothy blinks, like he’d just remembered she was there, before scrubbing an arm across his face. “yeah,” he finishes, somewhat lamely. “i liked it. liked _her_. i _wanted_ it. i’m just—i dunno, tatched in the head, or something. ’s not your fault.”

his hands are on her arms, steadying her. they’re the same height. something inside sasha snaps in half like a twig.

“wh—jesus _christ_ , sasha,” he says, wrapping his arms around her tightly as she lets out a long, loud wail and falls forward, her head landing on his shoulder. “it’s _okay._ ”

there’s none of the sharp, musty smell of the flesh hive she remembers, but he doesn’t exactly smell like a _person_ , either—if she had to name it, she’d say he just smells clean. she buries her face in his collar and cries, great heaving sobs that make her body shake. his hand rests on the back of her head, and her glasses press a painful line into the bridge of her nose. 

“you’re alright, i promise,” is all he says. 

if the earlier moment of tense silence lasted a week, this moment lasts ten years, but eventually her crying tails off into sniffles and then disappears entirely, and she hears him say, “i have to go, sasha. there’s four other people you have to talk to.”

she lifts her head from his shoulder, straightens her smudged glasses, thumbs the last tears away from her cheeks. “okay,” she says, her voice small. “i’m sorry for being… mean. will i see you again?”

timothy shrugs once more. “hard to say, you know? not really my place to comment on the, uh, the _whims_ of the almighty.”

“ _you_ believe in god?” sasha asks, the corner of her mouth turning up. 

he shoves his hands into the pockets of his green jacket and gives her a grin, laughing bright and warm. she thinks she might have liked to have known him in life. “nah.”

“yeah, me neither,” she replies with a shake of her head. she looks back up, taking in the way his smile has turned small and sad.

“you’re a good person, sasha,” timothy hodge says, very earnestly. “but you can’t save everyone.”

sasha nods. she understands.

he nods as well in confirmation before perking up a bit, like he’d heard something sasha’d missed. “looks like i have to run.” he smiles at her one last time, and socks her shoulder lightly. “maybe i’ll see you around, huh?”

“maybe,” she says, putting her hands in her own pockets, and then she is alone.


	2. omne ignotum pro magnifico

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i started watching supernatural in the year of our lord 2020 AD. i'm on season 10 and i've decided that ruby is my favorite character. this isn't relevant i just thought you guys should know

after leaving the building on azalea close, and then leaving azalea close altogether, sasha finds herself wandering back towards the magnus institute, tracing a familiar pathway up the empty streets and quiet sidewalks. for heaven, she finds it a tad barren.

she stops in front of the coffee shop across the street from the institute, though, because sitting inside is a familiar blonde figure, holding a cup of something steaming and reclining in the same squashy armchair in the far corner that it had the last time she saw it.

she enters the shop noisily and annoyed, the bell over the door clanging tinnily, drops herself into the seat across from the occupied one, and starts, “i hope you aren’t going to try to give me some inspirational speech.”

“it _is_ what i am tasked with, dear assistant,” says michael mockingly, twisting a lock of hair between one long finger. “can i get you a drink? anything you like.”

sasha stares at it suspiciously for a moment. “and you’ll foot the bill?”

michael hums discordantly, with a sound like a thousand chords on a thousand pianos being played at once. “any sort of heaven in which a dead woman’s coffee must be paid for to begin with is not a sort of heaven i would be keen on inhabiting, even if only for a short time.”

sasha stutters out a laugh despite herself. “touché.”

they sit in silence for a moment, michael’s expression inscrutable. sasha, in keeping, speaks first. “why are you here? we’re not friends.”

michael tilts its head, the catlike motion making its blonde curls bounce. “and the hive’s boy… he was?”

“i mean, not—not before.” sasha crosses her legs, and then uncrosses them, and then recrosses them the other way. “now, though… i think so. yes.”

“then perhaps _we_ are also to become friends.”

“i don’t want to be your friend.”

michael seems to have nothing to say to that. there is another silence.

“are you dead, then? you’re in heaven, so you must be.”

michael shrugs with only its left shoulder, circles a finger around the rim of its mug. it makes a weird scraping sound. “difficult to put into truthful terms—even dead girls can only make so much sense of what is not meant to make sense. suffice to say; yes and no, for given values of _yes_ and _no._ ”

sasha stares.

michael lets out a long breath through its teeth. “i’ve been… replaced. it’s none of your concern.”

“don’t know why i expected you to make any more sense here than you did when i was alive.”

michael grins, much wider than it should be able to. “now you’re getting it.”

“what _lesson_ are you here to teach me, then, huh? what sermon am i going to have to hear from you before i can, you know… move on?” sasha says pointedly.

michael takes a long drink of its coffee, which surprises her. at least, it _looks_ like it does—she isn’t sure if she sees it actually swallow, but when it pulls the mug down from its face, the level of liquid inside has gone down, so.

“sasha james,” it says, using her name for the first time ever, “you are a woman who likes to know things. you do not like secrets. you do not like lies.” it runs its tongue over its teeth. “this coffee is not very good.”

“of course i don’t like secrets, or—or lies, i mean, who does?” sasha asks. 

“you need a new perspective, assistant,” says michael, ignoring her question. “you need to find more comfort in the untruths.”

“what are you _talking_ about?” sasha implores desperately. “can you ever just say what you _mean?_ ”

“no, i cannot,” says michael, simply and seriously. 

sasha doesn’t really know what to say to that. she reaches out and picks up michael’s abandoned coffee mug, taking a drink of it. it makes her think of a mocha latte with pop rocks in it. she hopes this isn’t what everything tastes like in heaven.

“you are in dire need of a mental restructuring,” michael begins again, somehow managing to make it sound like a well-meaning (if slightly condescending) recommendation, rather than an insult. “it’s important to loosen your unyielding grip on the rules and laws which you perceive to govern you. healthy, even,” it finishes airily.

“oh, fuck you,” sasha spits, suddenly furious. “you have no right to tell me that.”

“you do not know every part of everything, sasha james, though you drip with the ceaseless watcher’s desperation to.” michael says, voice sharp and buzzing with static. “you _must_ come to terms with the fact that there will _always_ be things that you will not understand, or you will never be satisfied. you will never be at peace.”

another pause.

“why?”

michael blinks. she wonders if she’s actually caught it by surprise for a half-second before it tips its head back, blonde hair tumbling over its thin shoulders, and laughs, loud and echoing terribly. 

“oh, my dear assistant. how _boring_ , to know all—i have never understood you beholding types. an existence in which every depth is plumbed, in which no stone is left unturned—what a thin world that would be!”

sasha crosses her arms and sticks out her tongue like a child. something about michael makes her feel very young. it sticks its tongue out back at her. sasha keeps its mug of coffee in retribution.

“so,” says sasha, ”can i get something to eat around here?”

“the pleasure will not be denied,” michael answers cryptically.

“is that a yes?”

“sure.” 

“do i just… imagine it, or—”

michael shrugs again. “i wouldn’t know. i don’t need to eat. perhaps if you think of it, something will appear.”

sasha screws her eyes shut and thinks about blueberries as hard as she can. when she peeks one open, a bowl of them is sitting on the table between her and michael.

“oh, that rocks,” she says, setting down the mug and reaching for the bowl. michael’s hand darts out, spearing a berry on a suddenly-sharp finger before sasha can snatch them up and away. it pulls it off with its teeth and chews on it thoughtfully as sasha splutters indignantly.

“hmm. too sweet,” says michael with a grimace. it’s the most human expression she’s ever seen on its face, and it actually makes her laugh. the sound rings out in the empty coffee shop, and michael’s eyes sparkle.

sasha removes a handful of berries and returns the bowl to the table, as a peace offering. michael inclines its head in a nod before dipping a blessedly-normal hand into the bowl itself. every berry it picks out is small and sour. 

“you will never understand everything, sasha, my love,” it says, licking berry juice from the divot between its thumb and forefinger. “the world simply doesn’t work that way, much as you and yours may wish it to. some things are simply… unknowable. ineffable. defying description. it’s really not your fault.”

“i know it’s not my _fault,_ ” sasha says, more than a little snippily. “i just—i don’t know. i want to understand, when things… go wrong, when they—when they’re weird. it’s why i started working at the institute. i guess it didn’t get me much, in the end.” she takes a breath. “i just like to map stuff, i guess.”

michael nods, as though she’d spoken a great truth. “unmappable.”

sasha tilts her head back over the chair. “ugh, you’re _so_ annoying.” 

“in my nature, it is. do you understand what i am telling you?” 

“yeah, i guess so. don’t try to know what isn’t meant to be known, curiosity killed the cat, or whatever.”

“wonderful,” michael replies, and she can’t see its face, but it sounds like it means it. 

“what don’t _you_ know?” sasha asks. “i hope you’re not omniscient. you’d be being, like, the afterlife’s largest hypocrite about now.”

“i don’t know anything,” it says, very matter-of-factly. “all i am ever sure of is myself, and often not even that. the intricacies of existence elude me. it sort of comes with the territory.”

“so—what, you just wing it? _pretend_ you can help, _pretend_ you know any more than we do?”

“yes,” says michael very frankly. it eats another berry. “i help, sometimes, when i am capable. i harm, as well. i am not a creature of reason.”

“have you _ever_ been?” sasha asks, rather sharply.

it was rhetorical, and she sits back in surprise when, again, michael says, “yes.”

“i have not always been as i am now,” it continues. “being as i am—to be _michael_ —it is not the natural state of my being.”

“what is?”

michael shrugs again. “it’s difficult to explain. are you familiar with the works of m.c. escher?”

“vaguely,” answers sasha, remembering an afternoon spent at the tate modern the year before.

“well, think of one of his pieces—any one you like. cut it into a number of pieces equal to the square root of negative one, reassemble it upside down and backwards, and paint it magenta. this is an approximation of me.”

“i… don’t get it.”

“yes, that’s the idea,” says michael, an amused glint in its eye.

sasha huffs. “well, where’s this… ethereal escher painting, then? you look a tad washed out, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“i don’t mind,” says michael mildly.

sasha taps her fingers.

“it is… still here, beneath this costume. it is part of me—it _is_ me, lives in me even now.”

it pauses.

“i was human, once. or— _michael_ was human. the semantics, they don’t matter—i am not sure anymore where michael ends and i begin. i still do not understand what happened to me—the mantle which was thrust upon michael in his unwillingness. but that is alright, now. i have moved past the need to understand. i am no longer the mouth of the spiral, the throat of delusion. and i am at peace.”

“the spiral…” sasha narrows her eyes. michael waves a hand in dismissal.

“unimportant. this is my point—you do not _need_ to know. you are dead, my dear assistant—you have nothing you must concern yourself with, nothing you must understand. you can enjoy ignorance, for a while.”

“i don’t _want_ to,” sasha says, looking at her hands where they’re folded pensively in her lap. michael smiles again—it doesn’t show its teeth, this time. it looks small, and soft, and human.

“hardly any do. but it is necessary.”

it stands and stretches languidly, its joints turning in unfortunate ways. “now, i believe i must be going.”

sasha pulls her head up so fast she almost gives herself whiplash. “what? but i just got here.”

michael gives another inscrutable, enigmatic smile. 

“perhaps we _were_ meant to become friends, after all,” it says, and then she is alone.


	3. iniuria non excusat iniuriam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> happy holidays!!

sasha finishes her bowl of blueberries in silence, before leaving the coffee shop and heading across the street to the institute. no cars pass by, and nobody is on the sidewalk. she shivers, just once, in the breeze, before entering. 

the lobby is almost as empty as she was expecting—but there, at the reception desk, where rosie usually works, is her boss’s boss.

or, well, it’s _kind_ of him. he’s probably thirty years younger, but still recognizable, hair she remembers as short and silver still ink-black and unruly, only the tiniest dusting of gray at the temples. he’s broad-shouldered and angular, wearing a button-down that looks older than he does and high-waisted checkered pants. he’s got deep brown eyes that catch the light. 

brown eyes. he has brown eyes.

sasha knows that his eyes should be blue. they had always made her think of sapphires. 

“elias?”

“hey, girlie,” says the nineteen-year-old elias bouchard sitting in rosie’s chair. he’s twirling rosie’s favorite pen around and around his fingers, and he sounds so, so tired. “mind signing in?”

she does, numbly. walks over and takes the pen and scribbles her name down on the sheet he holds out for her. name? _sasha anna marie james_. date? _i don’t know_. purpose of visit? _passage to heaven, or so i’m told._

young-elias watches her, and takes the pen back when she’s done, dropping it back into the little cup next to rosie’s computer. 

“so, how do you like being dead?” he asks into the quiet, his gaze aimed off of sasha and instead onto the dust motes that dance in the sunbeam streaming in through the window. 

“already had someone ask me that today,” sasha says, leaning her elbows on the desk as casually as she can bring herself to. young-elias snorts an absent laugh, still not really looking at her. “it’s alright. i have to say that the whole, um, conjure-whatever-comes-to-mind thing is kind of a plus.”

elias smiles and laughs, for real this time, turning his face away from that point in space and making eye contact. he raises a dark eyebrow to sasha teasingly. “hey, watch this.”

he flourishes his hand dramatically, and a lit cigarette appears between his index and middle finger. he lifts it to his lips and takes a deep drag. 

sasha nods appreciatively. “nice.” elias holds it out to her, but she shakes her head, and he shrugs in concession before putting it back in his mouth. 

“not really _today_ , anymore, girlie,” he says quietly.

“what do you mean?”

elias ashes his cigarette on the desk. it makes a little white mark on the dark mahogany. he has a tattoo of an infinity symbol on the inside of his wrist. “you’ve been dead for about a year. by the time we’re done here, another six months will have gone by.”

sasha literally _feels_ her mouth drop open like a goldfish’s. elias huffs out another half-laugh around the cigarette, and smoke spurts from the sides of his mouth. “ _what?_ ”

elias shrugs. “time passes differently here. you stayed a long time with whoever you saw first. only a month or two with the second. six with me, ten with whoever’s after me. maybe… four with your last mark? and then you’re, y’know, free to go.” 

“go to heaven.”

“yuh-huh.” elias’ cigarette is halfway burnt.

“i thought this was heaven?”

“i mean, it sort of is? the foyer of heaven, i guess. it’s like, you’re goin’ to this big shindig, and this whole bit is the entryway where they make you wait while they take your coat and all of that. you have to talk to your five people before you get to go in and sit down.”

“where will you go, after i leave?”

elias flashes his teeth again in a smile. “back to the party.”

the smile is comforting, even on the face of her teenage boss. sasha leans forward a bit. “so, how do you know all of this? do they give you a manual when you finally make it in?”

it’s the wrong thing to say. elias’ smile drops until his affect is flat, and he runs a hand through his hair in a put-out sort of way. “no, i’m, uh—i’m a special case.” 

sasha tilts her head questioningly. elias closes one eye and taps a fingertip on the lid. 

“elias, he—the elias _you_ knew in life, he isn’t me. i forget exactly how the body snatching works, really, aside from something with the eyes, but it left me kind of—adrift. i’m dead, for all intents and purposes, which is why i’m here—even got my own five people and everything, way back when—but… i dunno. sometimes i know shit i shouldn’t. _couldn’t_. but he would. feels like just enough of me is still alive to see whatever he’s seein’, y’know?”

sasha isn’t going to lie to him. “i don’t understand.”

“yeah, join the club,” elias replies. he leans back in his seat, hands fiddling with the button on his collar. “wright tore my eyes out, girlie. yoinked me out of artifact storage and popped ‘em out with a melon baller. did some freaky shit so he could wear my skin like a jacket for a while. he’s been pilotin’ my ass like a mecha for the past however the fuck many years.” he undoes the top button of his shirt.

“ _i’m_ the real elias bouchard. the original. the first edition, author-signed copy. got the peepers to prove it.” he winks a brown eye at her in punctuation. sasha thinks of the elias she knew, and his eyes. she rather likes the brown ones better.

“i’m sorry,” is all she can say. “you—you can’t have deserved that.”

“didn’t,” elias says. “just—wrong place, wrong time.”

“but that—that shouldn’t have _happened_ to you,” sasha stresses. “it’s not _fair._ ”

“you’re right. but it did.” elias’ cigarette has disappeared from his mouth. “you gotta get a grip on that, girlie.”

“get a gr—what?”

“bad shit happens, sasha,” says elias flatly. “really bad shit happens to really good people or even, y’know, the morally average ones, and it literally always will. that’s not a weight for you to bear.” 

“i _know_ that,” sasha says.”i know that.”

elias’ mouth thins out, and then curves into a little half-smile of a man who’s just had a good idea. “hey, wanna see how everyone’s doing?”

sasha perks up. “you can do that?”

elias nods, spinning for a few turns in rosie’s chair before scooting it up flush to the desk and reaching to turn the computer on. 

“shyeah i can. rosie ain’t dead, so she’s not here to stop me from downloading afterlife skype onto her desktop. like i said—i get flashes of whatever fake-me knows, so maybe— _just_ maybe—you can check up on your friends. hold on a second, here.”

elias clicks a few buttons on the keyboard and flicks the mouse, pulling up what looks like a video chat window. it’s displaying the assistant’s bullpen of the archives. the date at the bottom reads _july 15th, 2017._

“kinda class, ain’t it?” elias says proudly. “can get a look at any room in the institute with this, it’s basically a heavenly security system. i like checkin’ in on the new whack shit they get delivered to artifact storage. y’know they got a book in there that’ll make you throw yourself off a cliff just to feel the wind in your hair and the sky in your veins?”

“fascinating,” says sasha.

“yeah, yeah,” says elias dryly. he types something into a bar at the top of the screen and the picture begins to move. sasha rounds the desk in a second flat and nudges elias’ chair out of the way. “whoa, slow your roll!”

“whatever,” she replies, eyes fixed on the desktop screen. on the camera, she watches a tall, tanned figure walk into frame and sit down heavily at a desk. he tosses the folder he’s holding onto the surface carelessly before putting his head in his hands as though he’s fighting off a migraine. his shoulders slump. 

sasha squints at the screen. “ _tim?_ ”

elias nods. “yuh-huh. looks a little tired.”

sasha hums.

“the archivist and that martin guy were here earlier, too. they’re doin’ ok, i guess.”

sasha keeps quiet, keeps watching. a short, skinny woman hurries in a moment later, her glossy bob of bright pink hair a shock of color in the mostly-monochrome room. her back stays to the camera as she and tim exchange words—what they say isn’t audible, but the woman’s stridence is clear from the way she holds herself, hands on her thin hips and pointy elbows jutting to either side, shifting her weight testily. tim’s expression is that of mild annoyance. 

“who’s that?”

“melanie king, ghost huntress extraordinaire,” yawns elias. “i think _maybe_ she works there now? dunno, haven’t really kept an eye on her.”

“oh, melanie!” sasha brightens. “i love her, she’s hilarious. didn’t recognize her—i think she—”

“changed the hair, yeah,” elias agrees, a weird little half-smile on his face as he looks at sasha out of the corner of his eye. “used to be, uh, what—”

“all black, when i met her,” says sasha. elias’ grin fullens at her dreamy tone. “she had red streaks for a bit, when it was still long. then blue, nice dark blue.”

“she misses you,” says elias, tapping a fingernail on the desk. “she talks about you sometimes.”

“wh—really?” sasha feels her face heat up. elias nods sagely. “i—wow. i hope i get to see her again soon, then.”

elias raises an eyebrow teasingly, before sasha realizes what she’d said. “i—i mean, i don’t want her to _die_ , i just meant—”

“yeah, i know what you meant,” elias laughs, turning off rosie’s computer. “you gotta be patient, girlie, you’ll see her eventually. just relax for a while, y’know? take a load off.”

sasha stands from where she’s still leaning on the desk and stretches, a joint in her elbow popping loudly. elias whistles appreciatively and sasha smiles, twirling jokingly with a flourish. 

“so,” elias says a moment later, reclining in the desk chair, “you satisfied?”

“with what?”

elias shrugs. “got a peek at how everyone’s doing.”

“not _everyone._ ” 

“close _enough_ , for christ’s sake. i gotta get going soon, i’m just checking that you’re feeling alright. _man._ ”

sasha’s face falls a bit—she’d kind of been having fun. “oh. okay.”

elias leans forwards, crossing his arms and resting on his elbows. “hey, don’t sweat it. we might even get to hang out again—you’re pretty cool. _pretty_ in general,” he finishes with an impish smile. sasha snorts a laugh, squeezing her eyes shut as she feels them prickle with tears.

“see you around, girlie,” elias says.

“alright, sure. see you around,” she replies, and when she opens her eyes, she is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i came up with the concept of afterlife skype like....5-ish years ago for a ttrpg i was doing with a friend and this is the first opportunity i ever got to actually use it in my writing


	4. nunc scio quid sit amor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one's so short i was having trouble with it. the last chapter is like over twice as long if that helps

sasha leaves the institute’s foyer after that, a little unnerved by the silence of it all—she’s not used to the reception desk with nobody behind it, or the lobby with no one milling about. she finds herself exploring everywhere she’d never seen in life; staring over desks of researchers she didn’t know, scrutinizing herself in the mirror of the men’s bathroom—she even opens the door to the office of the elias she knew, but doesn’t even make it inside the room before a sense of brutal wrongness overtakes her and pushes her back out into the corridor.

she saves the archives for last. she doesn’t really want to be there, but she enters anyway. it’s not the archives that had been on elias’ computer screen, with the filing cabinets all disheveled and the desks all pushed to the side to give jon’s office a wide berth, but rather the archives she knew—three desks in a little cluster in the middle, a row of neat cabinets on the left wall, and jon’s office door—always closed, always locked. tim and martin’s desks are bare and empty, but the desk she’d always used looks just as she’d left it. there’s even her travel mug of coffee still sitting on the corner.

it’s only then she realizes that she’s not alone. there’s a girl sitting on the floor several feet away, back against the wall between the filing cabinets. she’s wearing a pair of acid washed jeans and a dark gray hoodie and her head is hanging down so that her shoulder-length black hair obscures her face.

“hello?” says sasha softly—the girl looks asleep. she’s not, though, apparently, because her head shoots up immediately, eyes darting around before landing on sasha’s face and widening.

“sasha?” asks melanie king, repeating herself with a marginally more excited “sasha!” and scrambling to her feet. “holy shit, it’s you, it’s you—it’s the _real_ you—”

“what—what?” sasha shakes her head, nonplussed, as melanie’s hands catch at her arms like a parent checking her for bruises. melanie’s darkly painted nails glint in the fluorescent light. “what do you mean, _real_ me?”

melanie doesn’t answer, her dark eyes still drinking sasha in. sasha’s struck by a horrifying realization.

“oh, jesus—melanie, are you—are you dead?”

melanie cracks a grin and shakes her head. “ _no_ , god—i mean, i, uh, i don’t think so? uh, i think i’m—i’m dreaming. ‘s not—not usually this _lucid_ , grant you that, but—”

“you’re _not_ really reassuring me—”

“i’m—i’m alive, sasha,” says melanie through a string of breathless laughter. “i’m alive. _god_ , i missed you.”

“you… you did?” sasha feels her face heat up again, and thanks her lucky stars her skin’s dark enough not to make it obvious. melanie looks incredulous. 

“ _yes?_ god, it’s—we don’t even have any _photos_ of you, sasha, we—” melanie’s face falls at sasha’s uncomprehending expression. “i’m the only one who remembers you,” she finishes in a small voice.

“well,” sasha says, stung. “i, um—i mean, i guess it’s been long enough, that—um—”

“no, _no_ , no-no-no,” melanie overcorrects, shaking her head, her hair bouncing wildly. “it’s _not_ like that, i swear to god, it’s—um, remember the statement, um, from that woman who watched her neighbor through his windows?”

case zero-zero-seven-zero-one-zero-seven, statement of amy patel—yes. sasha nods. 

“and her neighbor, how he got—replaced. and—and only the statement giver knew,” melanie continues, carefully, quietly.

oh.

_oh._

“oh, god,” sasha hears herself say, and melanie’s mouth twists in sadness. 

“we—we found out, eventually. i think i finally got through to jon that you weren’t—weren’t _you,_ ” melanie says, again with a huff of laughter that, this time, is fully mirthless. 

“i wasn’t here for whatever he _did_ , but—it kicked off a lot. that was about—’bout eight months ago? it’s, uh—it’s been a while,” she continues. “jon talks about you. martin, and tim. i think it’s different for me, though—i don’t know. they’ve tried to have me draw you, you know?”

“did you?”

melanie offers another smile. “tried. i’m, um—let’s just say i’m more suited to the audio-video arts.”

that startles a laugh out of sasha, and though it’s wet and tearful, it’s happy. she missed melanie, too.

melanie’s hand moves up and to the side to cup sasha’s cheek. she’s a good six inches shorter, and she looks up to see sasha’s eyes. her expression is indescribably mournful. 

“they miss you, you know. even if—even if they don’t remember like i do.” she smooths another thumb over sasha’s cheekbone, a gesture that even sasha knows is… uncharacteristic. “all of us. we love you _so_ much, sasha.”

“i—”

“i mean it! jon even committed murder for you, you know?” 

“oh, my god. did _not._ ”

“did too! he made me be his middle man for a while, i felt very, uh—very mata hari.”

“jon?”

“i mean, he didn’t—he didn’t, um, i don’t think he actually—”

“jonathan sims did _not._ ” sasha snorts.

melanie smiles crookedly. “we… we _did_ miss you, sasha. we _do_ miss you.”

a short pause.

“do you… talk to them?” sasha asks, her eyebrows knitting of their own accord as she sees the way melanie’s face gets just a little bit harder. “jon, and martin, and tim—you’re—you’re friends?”

“ _friends_ might be pushing it,” melanie mutters sardonically, casting her eyes down. “but yeah, they’re around. jon’s…” she huffs a laugh. “insufferable, but you don’t want to hear that. martin—he’s around. tim’s...” she trails off. “they’re fine.”

sasha isn’t convinced, but she lets it go. “alright. well—i’m glad.” 

another pause, before melanie suddenly shakes her head, like she’s trying to clear water out of her ears.

“god _damn_ it,” she says through clenched teeth, before throwing her arms around sasha. it’s violent, forceful, knocking sasha a few steps backwards despite her height advantage, but she wraps her arms around melanie in return anyway, resting her chin on the top of melanie’s head.

“think i might be waking up,” melanie says quietly into sasha’s collarbone. sasha just squeezes her tighter in response.

sasha feels melanie press a hard kiss to her cheek and hiss something in her ear that might have been an _i love you_ , and when she draws back, she is alone.

(at 2:47 am in the land of the living, melanie king wakes up in georgie barker’s bed, and begins to cry.)


	5. vincit qui se vincit

sasha leaves the archives soon after. she’s not _bored_ , exactly—more like restless. she’s explored every locked room in the institute, now, except for one.

she’s saved the imposing door at the end of the basement hall for the very last. 

artifact storage.

she doesn’t want to be here. she stares at the brushed-nickel doorknob and thinks of how much she’d like to be somewhere else. she wants to be back in the archives with her lost friend, back in the lobby with her teenage boss, back in the coffee shop with a giggly monster, back on azalea close with a worm-eaten corpse— _anywhere_ but the lowest level of the institute, the last room her living self ever saw.

she turns the knob and goes inside anyway, though, because sasha james wasn’t raised a quitter, and a voice that sounds suspiciously like a nineteen-year-old elias bouchard tells her that she’ll stand in this hallway for the rest of her afterlife if she doesn’t open that door.

inside is dark, but her eyes have adjusted from the dim archives and lightless hall. she doesn’t bother flicking on the overhead fluorescents, just blinks behind her glasses until most of her surroundings are in focus. 

it’s almost exactly how she remembers, through her fear-clouded and faded recollection. there’s the shelf of all the sharp stuff, the bookcase with the ballistic glass front. the rack of cursed clothing and the boxes of shining trinkets. the silver serving fork that makes you try to eat yourself, the sapphire necklace with every star in the sky in its fat glossy gemstone, the ever-burning candle that they have to keep submerged in a jar of water. the table with the hypnotic pattern is missing from its niche, though, and sasha steps closer to see if she might have skimmed over it.

a scraping noise from the far corner. sasha’s entire body seizes up, all her joints locking up in fear as a wash of frightened memories flood her. she stares at the dark corner, watches transfixedly as a long, thin shape unfolds itself—and then as it suddenly shoots back to person-sized, jarring sasha out of the déjà vu. 

that didn’t happen last time, and sasha knows who the fifth person she has to talk to is.

a woman walks out of the shadows. she’s pale and thin, maybe five foot six to sasha’s easy six feet. she has a neat, straight, blonde bob and perfect eyeliner framing eyes so glittery blue as to look almost plastic. her nails and lips are both painted apple-red and her heels click-click softly on the concrete floor. everything about her screams _i am sasha james_ , and she looks nothing like the real sasha that is looking at her.

“what are _you_ doing here?” mutters the not-her, eyes narrowing slightly. sasha takes a step back, and the not-her takes one forward—then another, then another, stalking over the space where the table once squatted until sasha’s back is against the wall and the fake-her is inches away. “come to gloat?”

all sasha can think to say in return is, “ _you_ killed _me._ ”

the not-her’s pretty doll-face scrunches up in annoyance before smoothing out again as she tips her head to the side and makes a _fair-enough_ expression. she steps back and crosses her arms primly, glaring at sasha up and down. “so.”

“so,” sasha replies, feeling weirdly awkward under the not-her’s critical blue eye. a lock of blonde hair falls into the not-her’s face, and she blows it away—an oddly familiar gesture, one sasha recognizes from herself. _huh_. “do i have to talk to you, now?”

the not-her steps back, then, back and away to stand in the middle of artifact storage, her face falling into shadow from the still-unlit room and silhouettes of the shelves of artifacts plastered on her body. “i suppose so. do you have anything you _wish_ to say to me?”

“not—not really? can i just—you know, pass on? you’re really _not_ a conversational partner i’m particularly excited to engage with.” scratch talking to michael, or to timothy hodge— _this_ is the strangest conversation sasha has ever had, bar none.

“the feeling is _mutual_ ,” snipes the not-her, crossing her arms tighter and wrinkling her nose in distaste. “i’m not supposed to _see_ you after i _become_ you. it’s _weird_.” for an eldritch monster, sasha thinks, she’s bizarrely childish. 

“well, it’s weird for _me_ , too. what, are you actually _dead?_ ”

the not-her falters a bit for a split second, her lips pressing into a distressed line. 

“i—i don’t know. i think so. your _archivist_ did something to me,” she spits. “called on his _watcher_ to tear me apart. or something.”

“wh— _jon? jon_ killed you?” sasha actually physically reels backwards. jonathan sims— _her_ jonathan sims?

“you’ve missed a lot,” the not-her says, simple and acidic.

“no thanks to _you._ ”

the not-her smiles, pinched and caustic. sasha tries to remember what it is she’s truly dealing with—the monster that took graham folger and took carl moore and took rose cooper and took her, took _her_ and left barely a trace—but something about the not-her is making it tough. she just looks... human. bitchy and smug, but human nonetheless. 

she’s really very pretty, sasha notes detachedly, but in the same sort of way that deadly plants are often brightly colored. pearly plastic and poison, a venomous barbie doll in a skirt and spike heels.

sasha, feeling brave, decides to cut her losses. “so, tell me about yourself.”

the not-her narrows her eyes until they’re not much more than slivers of crystal in her cut-glass face. “ _excuse_ me?”

sasha lowers down to the concrete floor, kneeling and then sitting just like she had on azalea close—she privately marvels at the similarity and difference. from a twin to a stranger, what a leap! 

sasha waves a hand at the not-her, and surprisingly, she copies sasha, sitting down stiffly and crossing her legs beneath her. 

“tell me about yourself,” sasha repeats. “who _is_ the illustrious not-sasha-james?”

the not-her actually looks thoughtful for a moment, holding her hand flat and tapping her chin with four fingertips. 

“i am twenty-nine years old,” she begins. “i am of hungarian and russian ethnicity. i have a sister named marceline and a brother named william. i began work at the magnus institute in 2007, working in research. my favorite color is pink. i am allergic to cats and to gluten. i do not need glasses.”

“wow!” sasha exclaims, impressed despite herself. “ _none_ of that is true!”

the not-her grins, less malevolent and more bashful. “yes, i know.”

“how d’you think of all the new stuff?” sasha’s probably lost it, talking to the monster that _ate_ her _life_ like they’re teenagers playing twenty questions at a sleepover, but her academic spirit is getting the better of her. and, anyway, she’s already had a conversation with an escher painting shaped like a man her own age, so she can’t really throw stones. _lord_ , but being dead is turning out to be weird. “is it just whatever _isn’t_ me, or do you have to, y’know, make it up yourself?”

the not-her, it seems, is happy to answer. “it’s both. i am… brought into existence to look like the opposite of you, that is done without my input, but i am generally tasked with compiling a suitably different background on my own. sometimes it’s quite difficult. i am usually provided with enough of your memories to keep an act for as long as i care to.” 

it’s… odd, sasha decides, the way that she seems so very clinical about it all—without remorse, yes, but mostly without self-satisfaction, either. just… relaying the simple facts of her existence. she supposes that something that has never _been_ human has no frame of reference, but is something whose existence hinges on _pretending_ to be human not, in a way, a bit human itself, by virtue of simply _being?_

or maybe she’s just got it twisted, and it’s a side effect of the not-her being dead that’s made her so frank. maybe she just sees no point in gloating anymore.

maybe sasha’s just imagining it all.

“you should be a writer,” sasha says lightly, carefully, instead of any of that. the not-her is still fanged, she knows—though there’s no risk of injury, here, she’d rather not get yelled at. “seems like a pretty good exercise in character design.”

the not-her opens her glossy mouth, then closes it again. 

“yes. well,” she says, before flinching in surprise as sasha leans forward and reaches out to brush her forefinger along the slope of her nose. “what—what on _earth_ are you doing?”

“you got the nose wrong,” sasha says simply. “it looks just like mine.”

the not-her crosses her eyes humorously to stare at sasha’s hand. “should i change it?”

“ _can_ you?”

“i’m not sure.” the not-her shifts in place. “must i?”

“well, no,” sasha says, surprised. the not-her looks abashed.

“i like how i look,” she says in explanation, staring to the side and running her own fingers over her face—tracing high cheekbones, a small, pointed chin, an aquiline nose. “i am capable of… shifting shape, when necessary, but—i don’t enjoy it very much. it is… a means to an end.”

“is that why you’re still dressed up as fake-me?” sasha queries. “i mean—there isn’t exactly anyone to fool, here. i can’t imagine you have many conversations with your, uh—marks.”

the not-her shrugs, a jerky, unnatural motion that jars her sleek hair into mild dishevelment on one side. “i am… i do not _like_ my true form. i endeavor to stay in a different shape as often as i am able. and—i like this one,” she says, staring at her long, thin fingers as though she’d never seen them before and wiggling them a bit. 

“it lets me _do_ more than my true shape does. i can… talk. hold things. taste and smell. i enjoy it, i suppose. and—this one, it—is pleasing to the eye,” she finishes. sasha chokes on a giggle.

the not-her turns to face her, incensed. “ _what?_ ” she hisses, pale face going red in a very human way. sasha breaks into a burst of full laughter, holding up a hand. 

“no, no, i’m—i’m sorry,” she ekes out, thumbing a tear from her left eye. “you just—it just sounds like you want to be, y’know—a real girl.”

the not-her’s expression goes from nonplussed, to indignant, to contemplative in the span of about ten seconds. 

“i don’t know,” she says quietly, still looking at her hands and frowning. “i have never been anything besides what i am. i—well. perhaps.”

“i think it’s sort of, like—i’m sure people would say you’re, you know, evil. but i don’t know. you never _decided_ to do the shapeshifter routine, right?” sasha asks, and the not-her shakes her head. “right. so your actions, right, they’re—bad. um, morally speaking? but you’ve never done anything else. it’s just—what you do. like birds, they just—fly. they don’t _decide_ to.”

the not-her looks a bit confused, so sasha lets it drop. “nevermind. just—i don’t know. think about it, i guess. it’s not like we don’t have time.”

the not-her furrows her brow and nods, very seriously, before blinking and raising four fingers back to her chin in the same thoughtful gesture from before.

“i think... you have to go,” she murmurs, and doesn’t move as sasha stands up slowly. when sasha’s on her feet, the not-her tilts her head back, looking up with eyes that glitter in the dark. “i am—i am not sorry. i do not know if i am aware of… _how_ to be. but. i believe i am... grateful. thank you, sasha,” she says, as though she’d never said anything like it before.

sasha looks down and grins, bright and wide and genuine.

“no problem,” she says, and then the overhead lights come on, and then she is alone.

* * *

there’s noise, above her. the institute is no longer empty. she walks out of artifact storage and out of the basement altogether—bypassing the archives, and research, and elias’ office. she flashes a smile to young-elias, who’s back to reclining at rosie’s desk, and he winks at her.

sasha steps outside and is greeted with… well, the noise of the city, a far cry from the barren london she’d trekked through to get there. cars pass by and people chatter on the sidewalk. she briefly reflects that wow, heaven looks a _lot_ like a thursday morning in life, before hopping down the marble steps and striding onto the pavement. she’s got some people to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BABY'S FIRST MULTICHAPTER IS FINALLY DONE!!!! thanks so much for all the sweet comments it means a lot 2 me <3


End file.
